Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Green Lantern Secret Files and Origins #1

The cover is by Gil Kane, Kevin Nolan and Digital Chameleon. It shows the three biggest Green Lanterns — Alan Scott, Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner. It's an OK image, but not a particularly striking one. The first inside page is a much cooler shot of just Hal and Kyle, and it looks like it could have been drawn by Todd Nauck, but I'm not sure.

Like all the other Secret Files and Origins issues, this 64-page issue is full of all sorts of goodies: Profiles Pages for each Green Lantern and their major villains, a couple of backup stories, a timeline and an "interview." The only extra of any note is the Profile Page for the last Guardian, Ganthet, which is drawn by Craig Rousseau. But all we're worried about here is the 26-page main story, which features a very quick shot of Impulse.

Our story puts us in Guy Gardner's bar, Warriors, just as he's cleaning up. Even though it's past closing time, the former Green Lantern can't resist the urge to tell the whole story of all the Green Lanterns. He starts with Alan Scott, then moves on to Hal Jordan, himself, John Stewart, and finally the current and only Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner. And he's the only one we're interested in.

Kyle's story begins with Hal's fall into madness and transformation into Parallax. When Parallax destroyed the Guardians and Oa, one of them, Ganthet, managed to survive and create one last ring. Ganthet tried to give the ring to Guy, but he had felt unappreciated by the Green Lantern Corps and turned him down. So Ganthet gave the ring to Kyle Rayner, who established himself as the new Green Lantern. He helped stand up to Parallax in Zero Hour, and later joined the New Teen Titans with Impulse, Arsenal, Terra, Damage, and Donna Troy, who was his girlfriend for a bit.

Kyle then graduated to the Justice League of America not long after the Titans disbanded. With the JLA, Kyle fights alongside the Flash, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Batman, Aquaman, Superman and Martian Manhunter. Guy Gardner finishes his story by telling how Hal Jordan redeemed himself during Final Night and died reigniting the sun. Guy then reveals a new painting of all five Green Lanterns, which he calls "Five Regular Guys."

So there you have it. Not a lot to say here, since this isn't a Green Lantern blog, but I was very happy to see that not everyone has forgotten about Impulse's short stay on the Titans. And it is nice to see Impulse next to that group and not be drawn like he had 200 extra pounds of muscle.

There aren't any editor's notes or letters, but there are a few new ads:

Thirst no more. Coca-Cola.

Imagine you're Batman and you've been thrown into a world of broken bones and twisted minds. Welcome to the nightmare. Legends of the Dark Knight action figures.

Even the most powerful man alive is still just a man. Superman For All Seasons. Written by Jeph Loeb. Illustrated by Tim Sale. This is one of the better Superman stories that everybody needs to read.

Fruitopia Peachberry Quencher. If you fold A to B you get an image of the bottle.

Crunch it while you can! Oops! All Berries.

Watch This Space once again has nothing interesting to say. Just some fun Batman costumes for Halloween.

JNCO shoes and a new comic book series.

Milk. Where's your mustache? With Sarah Michelle Gellar, star of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. But this ad didn't seem to have the rights to mention the show, and only referred to "the undead" instead of vampires.

Next time, Impulse will make another guest appearance in The Flash #139.